Half-Fast Mike
Lanterne Rouge-et-vert
- May 22, 2007
- 4,644
- 3,700
I nominate AlanW for the "Humourous use of En-cycle-o-paedic Knowledge" avatar stripe award.Which ones?
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I nominate AlanW for the "Humourous use of En-cycle-o-paedic Knowledge" avatar stripe award.Which ones?
I nominate AlanW for the "Humourous use of En-cycle-o-paedic Knowledge" avatar stripe award.
I am not sure what to conclude.
Saturday @theDude, one other dude and I headed for Ome to do the Ome Temple Loop. We'd no idea what we were in for. This was a rather amazing day of no real flat riding, you climbed and climbed till the road went downwards and then the route turned to find another way up seemingly endless mountain passes. I was the happy owner of a new 11-28T cassette so I was sure I could get up anything. The first big climb was a monster of steepness. Not sure what grade exactly but I'd never hit anything like it before and even in my 39-28, I was grunting and cursing my pedals around at what felt like 0kmph in places. Holy moly. This was definitely the steepest uphill section of the day but the remainder wasn't so easy either especially after that hill had taken huge chunks of reserves out of the system.
The descents were narrow and not so clean but enjoyable all the same. I had the honor of leading down one particular descent when all of a sudden there were 3 huge dump trunks in front of me heading upwards. There was zero space on the side of them to pass and I was really happy and quite impressed at holding the bike together as I hit both brakes and went sliding this way and that to a halt just in front of the now stopped truck. Thanks for stopping mr truck! We walked our bikes passed the truck and carried on a little less confident perhaps in what we'd find ahead.
We didn't really stop for anything to eat apart from a cliff bar I had in my pocket and two bottles of water. With about 30k to go I was bonking and the hills were taking their toll. Finally we reached a main road where I let myself believe it would be all downhill to Ome. Not going to happen though. I was so wrecked that I never noticed I was in the big ring going up this long drag to a tunnel. No cadence and no legs and no brain to look. At the top of the hill I searched for the big ring and was confused when the lever didn't move. (insert curse here)
Was delighted to see a holiday express direct to Tokyo was the next train as we hit the platform and less delighted when it pulled up jammed full. We still got the bikes in and I managed to eat a burrito and drink some fluids while holding on to my bike and the hand rail on the way home.
Really happy I didn't do this one in the heat of summer. I'm looking forward to trying it again though now that I know what to expect. I'll definitely be raiding the combini at the station to put some calories in the system more often during the ride.
Top day out though and some great company to boot. Respect to @Deej for finding such a monster.
Also fun that this was on the HalfFast menu this Sunday. Looking forward to hearing how you guys got on!
Still not well enough to do a full ride, and an incredibly busy day. But enjoyed the amazing weather with a short trip to Jindaiji. The leaves there are perfect right now.
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Noticed that my tyres/wheels are a lot more noisy on this bike than my other one.
Haha, terribly sorry to invade your turf. Nearly bought a house there once, and boost the local economy frequently buying odango and soba, does that give me a pass?Bloody tourists!
Jindaiji resident.....
Yes I did the same route on Sunday with some HFC crew. First time for me and guiding using a route kindly passed to me by Mike. Can't work out where we went wrong because the ultra steep section up onto the Greenline turned into a grass/gravel track and we had to double back for 500m and go up another way (still steep but I suspect not the extreme riser shown by Mike's flash graphic). Turned out to be a winner for the views, and I suspect nicer climbing, but still gets to the same altitude with just a little more distance. I dropped Mike an e-mail today to try to figure out what went wrong.Saturday @theDude, one other dude and I headed for Ome to do the Ome Temple Loop....
....Also fun that this was on the HalfFast menu this Sunday. Looking forward to hearing how you guys got on!
Likewise my legs were completely failing by that point and I just wanted to get to Ome (even considered turning round at that point and enjoying that brilliant ride into Hanno instead) - anyway made it to Ome. Took us until 4pm with a 9.30 start and just WATTs for rests.I was so wrecked that I never noticed I was in the big ring going up this long drag to a tunnel